Largest Buddha in the World at Leshan, China

The largest Buddha in the world, 220 feet tall is located in Leshan, China near the city of Chengdu, Sichuan province. Chengdu City and Sichuan province are best known for the Panda and also as the Gateway to Tibet. In the past most tourists by passed Chengdu unless they wanted to go to the Panda Reserve and then only stayed over night in Chengdu before leaving for Lhasa or other destinations. The Buddha, known as Da Fo is less than two hours from Chengdu by freeway at the city of Leshan. Located at the fork of two rivers, you can take a boat ride out onto the river to get a good look in front of the Buddha and as you will note in the photo above there are stairs carved into the cliff so you may get a close up view at the foot of the Buddha. Each foot is 25 feet long and an ear measures 22 feet to give you an idea of the size. Da Fo has received a cleaning since these photos were taken during my last visit. The carving was begun by the monk Haitong in the year 713 and took over 90 years to complete. There is another set of stairs going back up to the top located inside the cliff on the right side of the Buddha so visitors can go in one direction. There is a temple and garden at the top so you can get a great view of the Buddha as well as the river below. I will be writing more about Sichuan province long considered the heart of China in later blog writings.